* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
My visit to Georgia was not my first trip to the Caucasus area but certainly one of the most amazing and amusing ones. On a cold, late-January Monday morning, we all gathered in Tbilisi’s Freedom Square to go to the mountains of Bakuriani for the Financial News Writing course, run jointly by the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The temperature was just below freezing on a gray day with the sky heavy with snow. Freedom Square had witnessed many major events in Georgia’s history including the restoration of Georgia’s independence in 1991 and the Rose Revolution in 2003 that prompted resignation of Shevardnadze and brought a change of power in the country.
It took us almost three hours to get to our training venue the mountains of Bakuriani, where the temperature measured -17 degrees. We started the course with a full class of 15 participants from various TV channels including Imedi, Real and Achara TV and newspapers including Prime Time, Kviris Palitra and Versia. Unlike many other training courses, the majority of participants were women, leaving us with only two male participants.
For a long time Georgia has witnessed rough times of corruption within the government and the larger political-economic system. However, with the advent of changes in Government’s current anti-corruption policy, corruption no longer seems to have a serious impact on the lives of the ordinary Georgian society. As the Georgian government shifts towards performance budgeting, the DFID-funded parliamentary strengthening programme is responding to the need for Georgian parliamentary journalists to be trained on budgetary issues.
Back to the training course, the participants were learning about generic budgetary concepts and comparing them with the concept of budget in Georgian Government, together with taxation and deficit, prices and inflation as well as financial markets, bonds and stock shares. The world of finance and financial news has always been a mystery to me. It was interesting to learn how the budget is created in the Government and how the draft budget is sent to the parliament where it will be publicly available. It then falls upon everyone in the parliament to form their opinions on it.
Georgians, as well as being great entertainers, have an incredible sense of commitment. This became evident when the two parliamentary speakers booked to speak at the course battled the terrible weather and long journey to deliver their speeches. On the second day, Gia Khuroshvili, the Government’s Parliamentary Secretary and speaker, talked about programme budgeting in Georgian Government. Mr. Khuroshvili explained the budget cycle, the way it is drafted and presented to the parliament. He said, “The best way to achieve quality reports and coverage of the news by journalists is to have specific knowledge and expertise in one or two certain domains as opposed to all topics.”
The participants really enjoyed the exercises throughout the course as it made learning more active. The last day’s focus was more on the bond market and why it can seem intimidating. The course ended with a speech made by David Bakradze, the Chairman of Georgia’s Parliament, who spoke about how the Government manages its budget by giving the participants a comprehensive budget breakdown for Georgia. Mr. Bakradze pointed out that, “the budget deficit in Georgia today is less than many EU countries and this is something Georgia is proud of.”
We left the course after the third day while the participants stayed for another two more days of training on the use of new media, with a focus on social networking and blogging.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
